The Routledge Intermediate to Advanced Japanese Reader

The Routledge Japanese Reader: A Genre-Based Approach to Reading as a Social Practice is designed for intermediate to advanced learners of Japanese and contains over 20 extracts taken from a broad range of media and literary sources. The book is divided into 10 genre-based chapters allowing the learner to focus on the textual features specific to that genre and the particular skills needed to read the texts. The selected texts cover topics related to Japanese language, society and culture, which are encountered in the Japanese media; from news reports through to interviews, book reviews, fictions and editorials. The Routledge Japanese Reader emphasizes reading as a purposeful social act which requires readers to make meanings of texts by considering the author’s choices in language (scripts, vocabulary, styles) in the texts. The learners are guided to situate each text in society (e.g., the author, target audience, socio-cultural background related to the subject) in order to understand the social significance of reading and writing. This book aims to help learners develop the ability to critically read and write in Japanese for their own social purposes.